by Bryce Edwards

12 September 2013

Geoffrey Miller: Can Labour learn from Act’s leadership primary? Part Two

In the last post, guest blogger Geoffrey
Miller looked at the background to the Act Party’s 2004 leadership primary,
which saw Rodney Hide win election over three other contenders. In this post, he
considers some new information passed from a former Act insider, who wishes to
remain anonymous. The comments are a cautionary tale as to what can go wrong
with a primary contest. Based on this information and analysis, Miller asks
whether Labour will end up going the same way that Act did following its
destructive primary. [Read more below]

An Act Party insider writes:

I'm bemused by the commentary on the current Labour
Party leadership 'primary'. While I'm not, in any way, trying to provide oxygen
to ACT's corpse, I haven't seen any mainstream media comment regarding the fact
that Labour's primary is not the first time this has happened. In fact, some of
the commentary is quite breathlessly talking of an epic change in NZ party
politics. That's wrong - ACT did it to replace Richard Prebble in 2004 (who
also stood down after being dirked by a member of his own caucus BTW). There
were 4 contenders for the position. We ran a 7 week primary campaign around the
country with Catherine Judd declaring that this process would re-unite and
invigorate interest in ACT's membership.

The second, but I think more important part of the
story is that ACT's leadership primary laid the foundation for the divisions
that destroyed it. There were dirty deals, false offers (eg 4 people were
offered the role of deputy by the same candidate), factions formed, people were
enrolled into the party in order to vote who, when asked to continue their
membership 12 months later didn't even know they were members of ACT (and over
12 of these lived at 1 address and struggled to understand english!). In short,
no matter who would have won the ACT primary, the path to destruction was
paved.

I think Labour will suffer a similar fate by
pursuing this.

I was very interested to read these
comments. It is clear that a “dirty tricks” campaign went on during the 2004
Act primary, including mass and possibly false registrations of members. The
insider’s view of the Labour primary in 2013 is clearly coloured by Act’s
experience.

This is all ancient history as far as the
now all-but-moribund Act is concerned, but are there any lessons for Labour in
2013? Will Labour end up the way of Act following its primary – riven by
internal division? I think there are several reasons, both technical and more
systemic, to believe the opposite.

First, the technical reasons:

The
“code of conduct” rules for the Labour primary prohibit a negative
campaign, with candidates banned from being able to “personally denigrate any
other candidate or to disparage the NZLP or its officers”. This makes a dirty
tricks campaign much less likely, with the ultimate sanction of expulsion from
the race.

The
deadline to become a member with voting rights was set as the day Shearer
resigned, which prevents Robertson, Cunliffe or Jones from using
mass-recruitment of (phony) members as a campaign tool.

The
election process is being overseen by a third-party contractor, Electionz.com,
rather than the party itself, which will presumably make for a more robust and
trustworthy election process. It is a short, sharp race – just 3 weeks rather
than Act’s 7.

And three systemic factors:

Having
a primary in a big party arguably makes more sense for a large party than it
does for a smaller one such as Act. Labour is a large party which is frequently
described as a “broad church”. For Act, the same should not be the case. After
all, the point of a small party is to focus on a narrower range of interests. But
yet, the 2004 Act primary showed that there were almost as many factions as MPs
– and the fact that almost half of the caucus (4/9 MPs) put their hand up to be
leader emphasises the division. (By comparison, only 3 MPs are contesting the
Labour leadership in 2013, out of a caucus of 34).

The
media and commentators are largely treating the Labour primary seriously – it
is dominating the political debate. This has much to do with Labour being a
major party. While there has been the expected criticism from Labour’s
opponents, who argue that the new leader is being selected by the unions and
that the primary only shows how divided Labour is, this has been secondary to
the main plot. Overall, coverage to date has been remarkably focused on policy and
personality differences between the three candidates. The 2004 Act primary, by
contrast, was treated more as a sideshow and something of a joke. While there
four candidates, all but Hide were arguably purists competing to different
factions of the party, rather than serious leadership material. This was only
underlined by the inevitable result, a Rodney Hide victory.

There
is a sense that the Labour Party genuinely wants a contest. The new rules were
passed at the 2011 conference and the primary represent the thrashing out of a
new consensus for the party’s direction in the post-Clark era. There is also a
sense that the new leader will genuinely unite the party and that the losers
will accept the result in the knowledge that the party has held a vote. Moreover,
it seems very likely that both losing candidates will be given senior positions
in the caucus. This will be very different to Act’s experience, which could not
unite under Hide’s leadership and had to engage in a fight for survival as it was crushed under
the weight of the much more popular National Party. Just two Act MPs were
elected to parliament in the 2005 election.

For the reasons I have outlined, I think the
Labour Party will be more likely to be strengthened by a democratic leadership
process, rather than weakened. Above all, a primary leadership process gives
members a real reason to belong and a stake in Labour’s success or failure. A
stronger membership which believes their views are seriously being taken into
account can only be a good thing, in a country which has seen party membership
– across all parties – decline massively in recent decades.

However, the Act insider is much more
negative about the consequences of primaries and believes that they can only
accentuate division and a drift by disgruntled factions to smaller parties:

If it is accepted that leadership primaries only
strengthen divisions within a party and set up long-standing resentments, then
the Labour Party will be weaker, perhaps forever, as a result of this exercise.
This doesn’t develop our democratic rights and freedoms but rather establishes
the environment for the opposite to flourish.

There is also the possibility that the National
Party might, in the vacuum following John Key’s departure, decide to have its
own primary. Further weakening and divisions might be applauded by those
wanting to see the small parties occupy more electoral space but the reality of
a multipolar parliament would be chaos.

At the post Vietnam War peace talks in Paris, the
senior American General stated that one only needed to examine the body count
to know that the US was enjoying considerable military success right up to the
end of the war. His North Vietnamese counterpart said “That is true, General –
but also irrelevant”.

And the same could be said to the person claiming
victory through having the most votes in the Labour primary.

Whether
the Labour leadership primary of 2013 ends up being a blessing or a curse will
be seen in due course. My thanks goes to
the former Act insider who supplied me with the material I have used in this
post.

Comments

Geoffrey Miller: Can Labour learn from Act’s leadership primary? Part Two

In the last post, guest blogger Geoffrey
Miller looked at the background to the Act Party’s 2004 leadership primary,
which saw Rodney Hide win election over three other contenders. In this post, he
considers some new information passed from a former Act insider, who wishes to
remain anonymous. The comments are a cautionary tale as to what can go wrong
with a primary contest. Based on this information and analysis, Miller asks
whether Labour will end up going the same way that Act did following its
destructive primary. [Read more below]